The un-tunable reed story

Hi Angel, good to hear from you.

It appears that you had checked off all the boxes for troubleshooting, especially comparing your breath (and embouchure) with other (Make, Model) harmonicas of the same key.

BLOW reeds are particularly troublesome, because our breath's aspiration, condensation, saliva and temperature impact (weigh down) the stability of the tuning.

My best practices are:

1. to minimize moisture build up on the reed, make efforts to match the reed temperatue with your mouth temperature (heating pad works good)
2. immediately after blowing, remove the moisture off the reed with air (e.g. small capacity air compressor used by air brush artists), before tuning
3. removing the Octave "beat" by listening is a good practice; however, I find the Peterson iStroboSoft app (Apple iPhone, iPad only), with the "Octave" adder invaluable. With the 5 columns of note degrees (fundamentals) displayed side-by-side, it makes it easier to isolate the troublemaking reed ;o)
4. if you can not tune your BLOW reeds after 2~3 attempts--STOP--allow the reeds and your nerves to settle down. Reeds are made of spring metal and don't appreciate being messed with.

Having laid all this "stuff" out for you--at the end of the day--finding a consistently, perfectly tuned harmonica is sort like hunting down an unicorn, you will spend more time chasing and less time enjoying your music ;o)

Your HARPSMITH, Kinya

Be well Angel!

Your HARPSMITH, Kinya